wet, tangled hair. 'Nice. New outfit?' She grinned. I looked down at myself, feeling very vulnerable in my half-state of undress. I was so tempted to cover myself with my arms. Yeah, explain that one, Littman.
'Why, yes. It’s in Eddie Bauer’s summer collections.'
'Hey, if you were the model, I’d buy it.' I rolled my eyes and opened my drawer, looking quickly for something to put on. 'Yah!' Fingers began to dig into my ribs and sides. I slapped at the hands, but it did nothing, just made my laughter bubble up even worse until I had tears coming down my cheeks. 'Uncle!'
'Why are you shouting ‘uncle’?' Haley asked, her fingers traveling to see where else my ticklish spots were.
'Isn’t that supposed to make you stop?'
'Why would it? I don’t much care about your uncle.' Okay, so I’d have to stop her myself. I managed to get myself turned around so at least I had some semblance of control. One of my hands tried to peel Haley’s off me while the other tried desperately to find any sort of ticklish spot on her. Nothing seemed to work.
'Damn, woman! Aren’t you ticklish anywhere?'
'Only one spot.' She said, baring teeth as she moved down to my thighs. Oh no, not my thighs. I tried to grin and bare it, not letting on that I felt like I was being killed slowly. Finally the tickling won over, and I burst out laughing, giving up my fight against her.
We fell to the floor, and I found my will rekindled when she recoiled from my accidentally brushing my finger along the bottom of her left foot. Could this be the magic key?
'Ugh! Stop, stop, stop!' Score!
I dug in to Haley’s feet with all my might, bringing her to tears as she squirmed on the floor, laughing, crying and begging me to stop.
'Truce?'
'Yes, yes! God, just please stop.' I took my fingers away and sat up, leaning my back against the side of my bed. She took several deep breaths, and finally got herself together, looked at me. 'Damn you.' I grinned, patting the space next to me. She scooted back until she was next to the bed.
'What do you say to a PlayStation game?' I looked at her, still panting from the attack. She nodded.
'You got it.'
The sun would be going down soon, which made the house that much colder. The snow had let up quite a bit, and I figured it would stop all together by tonight.
'How the hell do you beat this guy?' Haley asked, staring at the screen that had YOU LOSE across it.
'Very carefully.'
'Yeah, thanks for the tip. Come on, stud. Let’s see you beat him.' She tossed the controller to me, and I grinned.
'Gladly.' I hit start, and began on the same level of Mortal Kombat where Haley had been. I began to chew on my lower lip as the bad guy came on the screen, and I thought of what strategy I planned to use.
I had played this game so many times, and had already beaten it once, so there was a serious disadvantage for Haley. She sat beside me, watching with wide-eyed excitement as I brought the guy to his knees.
'That was so cool!' She looked at me, a whole new respect in her eyes. 'How did you do that?'
'Hours and hours of practice.' I admitted.
'Want to play against each other?' I looked at her.
'Are you nuts?'
'Yeah, pretty much. But, we should do it like this, since you have had hours and hours of practice, and I’ve had a half hour of play total, the best of three. But here’s the thing; you have to win all three, and I only have to win one game.'
'Okay. What do we win?' She shrugged.
'I don’t know. Guess that’s up to the winner.'
'Works for me.'
'Game on. Oh, but wait.'
'What?'
'I need my Linda.'
'Oh, lord.' Haley jumped up and grabbed one of her Linda Eder CDs, and stuck it in the stereo.
'Much better.'
The game started, and it was obvious who was going to win this one. Feeling cocky, I decided to show off a little, blowing her guy out of the water.
'Damnit, Andi!'
'Temper, temper.' I set my controller down and looked at her.
'That’s only one. You have two more to go.'
'You got it.'
Two games, and bloody defeats later, I looked at my opponent again. 'Pay up.'
'Okay, okay. What do you want?'
'Hmm.' I put my finger to my chin, tapping as I looked around as I tried to decide what to have her do. Then I thought about the brownies my mom had made yesterday. 'Hold that thought.' I stood, and quickly ran upstairs, bringing a plate of the treats back down with me.
'Oh, yum.' Haley smiled, rubbing her hands together.
'Yeah, you’ll say yum. You, my dear, have to shove three of these squares into your mouth, and eat them. They all have to go down. Got it?' She looked at the brownies, then at me.
'Simple.' She grabbed one, easily stuffed it inside her mouth, grabbed another. That one took a bit more thought to shove in. I chuckled as her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk.
'One more.' She sighed, grabbing a third, and, using some pretty impressive ingenuity, got it in there with the other two. For a second I felt bad, as she looked like she would puke them all up, her eyes bulging, trying not to gag. I smiled as I watched her try to slowly but efficiently chew enough to be able to get some of it down.
Finally, all three were swallowed. Haley opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue to show me. I clapped.
'Very impressive. Shall we continue?'
'You got it. I’m going to get you for that.'
'Just try it.'
You played hard, Andi. You played hard. No matter how many times I told myself that, I still couldn’t believe Haley had beat me. At my own damn game!
I looked at her, waiting to see what horrific task she’d have me perform. She looked at me, chewing on her lip as she decided.
'Okay. Follow me. Oh, and lose the shirt.' She stood and headed for the stairs. I looked down at myself, brows drawn in dread and confusion.
Haley stood at the garage door, her finger on the electric opener.
'What are you doing?' I asked, looking out into the front yard, which was a light blue from all the snow, and the falling sun.
'It’s not a matter of what I’m doing, but what you’ll be doing. Soon.' I stripped my shirt off, immediately starting to shiver. 'Okay. You have to run out to the street and back.'
'Like this!?'
'Yup. Like that.' She looked down at me, then to my face and smiled. I took several deep breaths, trying to get myself ready, and praying that my nipples would not freeze into rocks and fall off.
I ran into the garage, and hopped over the snow wall, and made my way through the freezing snow, made somewhat hard by the rapid drop in temperature, so it was easier to run along the top couple layers of it. I screamed as I hit what was normally the curb, and turned to head back. I was so damn cold I could cry.
Haley was laughing when I got back, holding my sweatshirt for me. 'Come here, you.' I was shivering so bad, my teeth felt like they’d break from chattering. I clung to the warmth of the soft material of the sweatshirt, glad when Haley closed the big garage door, then the door to the house. 'You okay?' she asked, and I nodded.
'Rrround th, th, three.' She chuckled, and we headed downstairs, though somehow by the grace of Satan
